Ronald Koeman has every right to feel aggrieved today. Southampton were by far the better team in their match against Manchester United at St Mary’s on Monday night. They were better organised, more threatening and sharper all over the pitch. But they lost.
Whatever Louis van Gaal was trying to achieve by playing Michael Carrick at centre-back, it wasn’t obvious and it didn’t succeed. Without their best passer in midfield, United’s shaky defence had no outlet and kept giving the ball away. Van Gaal admitted afterwards that his team had been “lucky” but, as Carlo Ancelotti once put it: “It’s better to be a lucky manager than a good manager.”
Gary Neville said that his former team “got away with murder” but Van Gaal seems to have struck upon a handy way of winning football matches: play badly, rely on a world-class goalkeeper to pull off a few flabbergasting saves, take as few shots as necessary, score them all and go home with three points.
The strategy worked perfectly against Arsenal at the Emirates a few weeks ago, when Wayne Rooney scored United’s winning goal in the 85th minute with the team’s first shot on target. They were equally efficient against Southampton on Monday night. Robin van Persie was the only United player to shoot in the whole match, but two of his shots were on target, they both went into the net and United have now won five matches in a row.
Perhaps shots are over-rated. Manchester United managed to beat Everton in 2001 without mustering a single shot on target. With the game petering into borefest of nothingness, Andy Cole was presented with a chance in the 52nd minute. Cole’s wayward shot was drifting wide when it struck Steve Watson on the heel and ricocheted into the Everton net. United didn’t trouble the Everton goalkeeper for the rest of the game but they held on to win the match and, a couple of months later, they picked up the Premier League trophy for the third season in a row.
Remarkably, when Sunderland won a match against West Brom without having a shot on target in the 2005-06 season, Watson was again guilty of scoring the own goal. This time Anthony Le Tallec struck a shot that bounced off Watson and found its way past his underworked goalkeeper.
Given that Sunderland had won the match without forcing a save from the West Brom goalkeeper, you might expect Mick McCarthy to have reacted with a degree of embarrassment and modesty. You would be wrong: “Today we’ve earned a very good three points,” said an enthused McCarthy. “We said in the dressing room the game was there to be won. We had to work hard and dig in but it’s a justified three points. We never stopped fighting. The players are remarkable. Some teams would have thrown the towel in, these players have kept me in a job.” McCarthy was sacked within six weeks, to be replaced by his old Ireland buddy Roy Keane.
Earning a result without having any shots on target is fairly common. A host of teams have held on for goalless draws without having any shots, and West Brom, Fulham and West Ham have all drawn matches 1-1 without having a shot on target. But to win a match without creating any chances, you want to be playing against a team that contains Steve Watson. Sometimes it’s better to be a lucky player than a good one.
